10-year-old boy shot while playing basketball outside his home

ATLANTA — A 10-year-old boy was shot while outside his home in northwest Atlanta and was driven by a family member to the hospital, police said.

Around 8:40 p.m. Monday, police responded to a report of a child with a gunshot wound at the hospital.

They then went to the home on Woodlawn Avenue to investigate the circumstances, saying it appears he was hit by a stray bullet.

A young man identifying himself as the boy’s brother told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims that the child was shot in the thigh and will recover.

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He said he drove the child, who he identified as Chase Martice, to Hughes Spalding Children’s Hospital.

Whitney Corry, who lives in the same duplex as the boy, said Martice was playing basketball with several younger children when he was shot. But she said she never heard any gunfire.

“We don’t know what direction it came from,” Corry said. “And (police) were trying to see whether there were any cars, but there was no car. There was no gunshot that we heard of, so it’s very disturbing. This is a peaceful neighborhood. For a child to get hurt, an innocent child at that is very hard to deal with.”

She said it’s especially unnerving because she has three children of her own – and there were other children outside.

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“It’s very sad because these children can’t even play in their own backyard without getting hurt by someone else,” she said. “It could have been worse.”

Anthony Grant, an Atlanta police spokesperson, said investigators have no information about a suspect.

He would only say a “preliminary investigation indicates the child was struck by a stray round while outside in front of the home.”

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